parent: I've not seen this problem. I only use chrome on mac. maybe on windows/linux it's doing something differently. as each new tab is a new process, it smells like a goofball file system permissions issue to me. does it still happen if you create a new profile?

it works as you'd expect both with google sync on, off, paused, and never-been-setup for me.

hard to imagine that this isn't some bug of installation for you. there's no way this would be tolerable behavior and if it were because of chrome per se, there'd be lots of uproar so you'd find your answer right away.